Baby Talk

Jake Gyllenhaal Talks About Kids the Way Tabloids Pretend Jennifer Aniston Does

Get this guy a baby.
Jake Gyllenhaal looks pensive at a panel.
By Rich Polk/Getty Images.

Jake Gyllenhaal badly wants to be a dad. He’s gotta be one! Get Jake a baby! The actor stars in the upcoming Stronger as Jeff Bauman, a real-life survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing and father to three-year-old Nora. While promoting the film, he told People, “I want to continue becoming more of an adult than I already am. Hopefully with a family of my own.”

Maybe that’s overstating his enthusiasm about prospective fatherhood, but he does admit eagerly and often that a kid could be nice. Allie Jones at The Cut dug up interviews from 2015, when he went on a tear of baby talk while promoting Southpaw (it was pertinent-ish; he plays a dad who boxes). “I would love for it not to be fictional,” he said, referring to the fatherly part. He told Entertainment Tonight that fatherhood “is definitely a dream of mine, should I be lucky to have that to happen.” Of being a “father and husband,” he told The Inquirer, “there is no other purpose I can see in the world than that.”

Sure, he could be treating his fans like nosy aunts, nodding along as we wonder when he’s going to settle down with someone nice. He must know he’s feeding a certain kind of tabloid beast. Look no further than one Jennifer Aniston, who seems permanently steeped in rumors about babies—wanting them, having them, adopting them, desperately trying to get them. Though in Aniston’s case, the stories are rarely tied to her own talk, except for when she wrote an op-ed last year saying, “I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up.” For over a decade, tabloids have spoken for her on the subject.

Here’s a sample of covers from the last decade or so: “Jen Twins!,” “Jen’s Big Secret Pregnant!,” “Jen’s Finally Pregnant! First Bump Pic (World Exclusive)!,” “Jen’s Pregnant,” “Yes! I Am Having a Baby” (featuring Jen), “Jen Adopts Two Girls!,” “Jen: Pregnant Bride!,” “Finally! They’re Both Pregnant” (featuring Jen and Kate Middleton), “Jen’s Shocking News: I’m Finally Pregnant!,” “Pregnant and Alone” (guess who), “I’ll Raise This Baby Alone” (guess who again), “Jen’s Pregnancy Secret: ‘I’m Having a Baby!,’” “Pregnant at 40!,” and “Jen Baby Joy at 48!

Gyllenhaal isn’t free from all of the indignities that come with celebrity, for whom it always seems to be open season on their private lives. Just try to ask him about Taylor Swift. Go on. Try. But at 36 he gets to talk freely about a potential future family, without the tabloid shaming and implied ticking biological clock that female celebrities get. Perhaps he’s just enjoying that freedom; perhaps, in a fantasy version of this scenario, he’s made a pact with Aniston to talk about kids a ton and take the focus off of her.